CityLab Daily: Embracing the E-Bike

Also: Remembering a bipartisan push against exclusionary zoning, and the homelessness problem we don’t talk about.

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Take the e-bike: Docked bikeshare systems are finally getting a boost, thanks to e-bikes. New York’s Citi Bike added 200 of the pedal-assist two-wheelers on Monday, signaling a ramp-up to 1,000 e-bikes total by the time the L train shuts down in April (AM New York). Elsewhere, e-bikes have zipped in via dockless companies like Jump and Lime, but docked bikeshare has been slower to catch up. San Francisco’s Ford GoBike added e-bikes this spring, and D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare tweeted last week about potentially adding some of its own.

But the booming industry faces a potential roadblock: tariffs. On Thursday, the U.S. government will begin collecting a 25 percent tariff on Chinese-made goods, including electric bicycles and e-bike motors (Bicycling). While it isn’t clear which companies source parts from China, the North American Bikeshare Association, which lobbies for the industry, says the tariffs will “significantly increase the cost to implement and operate bikeshare for cities” and will “undoubtedly harm the bikeshare industry” even as it begins picking up in a big way.

In southwest Connecticut, the gap between rich and poor is wider than anywhere else in the country. Invisible walls created by local zoning boards and the state government block affordable housing and, by extension, the people who need it.